


La Légende de la Morte

by iberiandoctor (Jehane)



Category: Les Chouans - Honoré de Balzac
Genre: Ghosts, Haunting, M/M, Mentions of canon character death, Non-Consensual Spanking, Slapping, Supporting Character Death, Trick or Treat: Trick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-19
Updated: 2019-10-19
Packaged: 2020-12-23 22:48:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21089060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jehane/pseuds/iberiandoctor
Summary: "The Abbe Gudin said he'd have to roam round two months as a ghost before he could come to life. We saw him pass us, — he was pale, he was cold, he was thin, he smelt of the cemetery."… “And if a ghost gets hold of a living man, he can force him to be his companion."





	La Légende de la Morte

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Esteliel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Esteliel/gifts).

The hour was late. Night had not only established its hold over the town of Fougères, it had settled in for a long campaign, with the promise of dawn an equal and frustrating distance away. 

It was the time for military men to be abed, having acquitted themselves honourably on the battlefield, before rising on the morrow to take up arms once again for the Republic; and indeed, after the victories of the night before — when the Marquis de Montauran had been slain, and the counter-revolutionary Chouan troops routed in a way that should convince even Paris’ most suspicious government officials — the valiant republican soldiers of the seventy-second demi-brigade had earned their rest.

And yet the commander of those battalions, the unquestionably valiant Commandant Hulot, was still awake.

In order to compose the painstaking reports required by his superiors, Hulot laboured with quill and ink over the narrow, ornamental, gilt-edged desk that was too small for him, closeted in a borrowed room that was far too large. He would have preferred being billeted at the posting-inn or in the older part of town with his men, but when the mayor Loysel had offered to house the senior officers in a townhouse a stone’s throw from the mairie in the upper city, Hulot had not seen a polite way to refuse.

Merle might have enjoyed these opulent furnishings; for all that he’d been a hardened soldier, the young captain had a distinct leaning towards the trappings of luxury of which Gérard had tried, mostly unsuccessfully, to dissuade him. 

Both men were dead now, thanks to the treachery of the Gars and his mistress. 

Hulot’s throat tightened at the memory; he had to lay down his quill. For an instant, his vision in the steady candlelight swam an angry red. God’s thunder, at least they had been avenged.

Far less satisfying to him was the fact that that vengeance had been achieved by means of a snare set by Corentin. Hulot had lost his temper on several occasions with the infuriating spy foisted upon him by the Ministry of Police — their last argument had been only the day before, at Montauran’s deathbed — over the government’s underhanded approach as promulgated by said spy. How honourable could it be to achieve a victory via trickery and subterfuge which could not be gained by open combat?

And yet, without Corentin’s deception, Marie would not have betrayed the Gars, and Montauran would not have succumbed, and the Chouan insurrection would continue to claim the lives of honest men. Hulot would never have acknowledged it to Fouché, but in the privacy of his borrowed room he had to admit that the little police spy had contributed greatly to the war effort, despite his ridiculous _incroyable_ getup and even more vexing insubordinate attitude.

These Corentin-centred musings were interrupted by a noise outside the room. 

This was unexpected. Loysel had a grand stone townhouse of modern design, not given to creaking of like the medieval timber-framed dwellings in the lower town. The mayor’s family and the remnants of Hulot’s senior officers had been in bed for hours, and; it was not yet time to change the guard at the door.

Could it be Corentin, abroad on some ignominious errand of espionage while decent men were in their beds? Fouché’s tool had installed himself in the best room in the mayor’s mansion before Hulot and his men had even arrived in Fougères, and since then the spy had somehow managed to hound Hulot’s every move. But this night Corentin had taken himself meekly from M. Loysel’s salon to his assigned chamber, and Hulot had not heard the distinct commotion of the spy’s polished Suwaroff boots clattering down the corridor. 

Not that he was listening out for Corentin’s comings and goings, of course. 

The noise rang out again, louder this time. 

Hulot rose to his feet. Fortunately, he had not undressed for bed and was still garbed in his half-kit; his sword belt was lying on the dressing table an arms’ reach away, and he drew his sabre as silently as he knew how.

He opened the door quietly. The corridor was empty, lit by a single, covered candle — Loysel was hospitable, and well-to-do, but he wasn’t profligate. 

Corentin’s room was adjacent to Hulot’s own. Its door stood suspiciously open. 

Hulot entered, sabre at the ready. The room was indeed larger and better furnished than Hulot’s, and lit only by starlight, the window thrown open and curtains drawn to admit the freezing December night. 

On closer inspection, Hulot could see the bed was empty of Corentin’s slender figure, and, further, that it had been ill-used: — the covers thrown to the floor, the wrecked sheets displaying the clear signs of a struggle, with an assailant or with dreams too awful for sleep to contain. 

Corentin’s frivolously-cut clothes were cast haphazardly upon one of the brocade armchairs. Hulot wasn’t familiar enough with Corentin’s customary ensemble to know if anything was missing, but the aforementioned little Suwaroff boots had been abandoned in the middle of the floor.

“God’s thunder,” Hulot muttered to himself, dumbfounded. “What happened here?”

He glanced out of the window. The street below was dark, with nary a soul to be seen under the frigid stars.

Hulot pulled the window shut, wondering if he should rouse the men within. Young Lebrun, promoted to captain after the dark deeds at La Vivetière, was billeted on the floor above, together with the new adjutant Georges and the other officers who had accompanied the battalions from Mayenne; there was also a guard posted at the front door. But it was not immediately apparent if Corentin had fallen victim to foul play, or if he was seeking to perpetrate the same on the Devil knew whose account. Better for Hulot to perform further reconnaissance before resorting to measures that would wake the entire household.

Hulot exited Corentin’s room, and looked down the corridor. The door that led to the mayor’s apartments seemed closely secured, but that of the room alongside it — Hulot recalled it was ordinarily fastened — was also ajar.

Hulot seized the covered candle in the corridor and went to reconnoitre. 

This room appeared to be the mayor’s private study. It was darker than Corentin’s, the window admitting a view of the valley and the Nançon beneath. When Hulot held the candle high, he beheld a scene that echoed Corentin’s ill-used bed — the escritoire ransacked, its drawers pulled out and papers in disarray on the floor, the great seal of the Republic lying on its side. It was impossible to tell whether anything of value had been taken.

His blood racing, Hulot set the candle upon the desk and considered his next move. He was no police spy, but the veteran soldier could read the clues in all manner of terrain. The mayor had been the subject of a burglary, and Corentin was either accomplice, or casualty, or both. 

Knowing the exasperatingly complicated spy, it was probably both.

At that moment, Hulot heard the noise again. This time he discerned it coming up the stairwell, from the floor below. Unmuffled by the layers of good oak, it sounded distinctly like a human voice. 

Hulot left the room and headed for the stairs, his blood up.

The lamps that lit the stairwell and the entrance hall had long been extinguished. Still, Hulot did not hesitate; his instincts had committed to memory the configurations of Loysel’s mansion as surely as the topography of Lower Brittany and the twisting pathways of Fougères’ old town.

Approaching the heavy front door, Hulot noticed that it was, in its turn, unfastened, admitting a sliver of winter into the hallway. The guard outside was nowhere in sight.

The voice rang out again, fainter this time. It sounded as if it was coming from the southern side of the house, where the salon and library were located.

The lights in the salon had also been doused, but the remnants of a fire in the grate cast red shadows across the brocaded walls. Hulot was not a superstitious man, but he frowned, remembering Mme. Loysel’s mention of this old Breton custom: to appease the souls of the recently departed who might be seeking refuge from the winter night. 

A step away from the salon was the library. Within it, bent over the large writing-desk — silhouetted against wide windows that looked down into the valley and the night sky beyond — was a slender figure in a transparent white garment, long hair billowing against its lissom shoulders.

At the foot of the writing-desk lay an unmoving body wearing Republican blue, its head tilted at an unmistakable, unnatural angle.

“Ten thousand thunders,” Hulot said, or tried to, at any rate. For the first time in his life, his booming tones of command failed him. His blood seemed to have turned entirely to ice.

The figure turned towards him. It grasped a sheaf of paper in one spectral hand; in its other was a jewelled dagger, the naked blade dark with blood. 

Its pale, haggard face was nothing like the pallor of a living man, which was why Hulot did not immediately recognise it.

The smile that tugged at its livid mouth, too, resembled nothing a living man would wear.

“I can explain, _mon général_,” Corentin said.

Immediately, it was as if a cloud had been drawn across the sharp green eyes, and the lines of that familiar, infuriating face seemed to change in some indiscernible way. “...Another one? We must do away with him, also! Or, no, he may be of use,” Corentin muttered, as if to himself, and then, “Indeed, he may know where it is.”

The spy’s voice held a high-pitched edge which Hulot had not heard before, and Hulot had had the misfortune of spending the last eight days in earshot of the man. Corentin sounded as if he was wrestling with his own sanity. If he had not heard it with his own ears, Hulot would never have believed anything could so divest the spy of his damnable sang-froid.

With that in mind, Hulot took a firm hold of his own composure. This was no ghost summoned from Breton old wives’ tales; instead, it was a living, flesh-and-blood man who might be suffering a breakdown of nerves that had driven him to extremes. Hulot had seen such nervous illnesses in soldiers who had experienced battle, and for all his uncanny self-possession, Corentin was no older, and far less war-hardened, than Hulot’s younger brother.

Then again, it could be yet another ploy of that damnable spy, carrying out yet another impenetrable mission for Fouché which involved covertly stealing or destroying some mayoral document or other, killing the guard posted at Loysel’s front door, and startling the wits out of Hulot in the process.

Recovering his voice, Hulot demanded, “What have you done now, citizen spy? Why the Devil did you kill this man?” 

“This isn’t —” Corentin seemed to struggle with himself again, before saying, harshly, and in the same strange voice as before, “There isn’t time for this. Commandant, where are the papers belonging to the Marquis de Montauran?”

“The papers?” After Montauran had breathed his last, and Hulot had given his men their orders, he had returned to Marie de Verneuil’s house with Beau-Pied in tow, to find Corentin retrieving what remained there in the name of the Ministry, including the contents of the poor girl’s trunk. 

Hulot had not repeated the threat he had made to Corentin at Montauran’s deathbed. He had contented himself with gathering the few masculine belongings which had been left on the armoire in Marie’s chamber — these, Hulot had delivered to Loysel, so they could be sent by mayoral offices to Montauran’s younger brother in London in accordance with the dead man’s last wishes. Which meant …

“…The papers are not here, but in the mairie,” Hulot said, slowly. “But if you were really Corentin, you would know that.”

The pale figure wearing Corentin’s form stood stock-still. Then it sketched a horrific, mocking bow towards the soldier.

“Bravo, Commandant,” it said. “Marie always underestimated you, and this vile little spy still does. He would have tried harder to warn you if he thought you were capable of solving his predicament without killing him at once.”

“What makes you think I won’t?” Hulot demanded. He had spent years on the front lines in the defence of France, had seen and done things that would have made living men quail. He’d be damned if he was going to let a dead one get the better of him — even if he had no experience doing battle with ghosts. 

The figure laughed disdainfully. “You’re welcome to do so. I’d prefer to keep him alive for long enough to suffer as my darling suffered, long enough for his flesh to amuse me and the brave fellows he betrayed, but rest assured, death won’t put an end to his suffering.” A crafty look crossed that terrible face, and it let the paper fall in order to put a finger to its forehead. “Unless…” 

“Unless—?”

“Unless you take me to the mairie to retrieve my belongings. Once I have my papers, I’ll let you have your little plaything back. Undoubtedly you still feel responsible for the men under your charge, and the Ministry will be gratified at the return of its agent.”

“Why should I trust you?” Hulot demanded, taking a step forward. He very emphatically did not trust this ghost — in life, Montauran had been untrustworthy, and that lack of trustworthiness had put sixty-five good men to the death. Besides, Hulot had bested the man once, and felt certain of being able to do it again.

“Stay where you are!” The thing that had been Montauran brandished the dagger at Hulot, wielding it with a skill that Corentin had clearly never possessed. 

As Hulot stopped, Montauran reversed the dagger and held it to his own — to _Corentin’s_ — throat.

Hulot held out his hands placatingly. “Don’t do anything rash, damn it! Put the woman’s weapon away, and let’s talk like Frenchmen.”

The figure laughed again. “A woman’s weapon, indeed! It was my wife’s. The spy claimed it, and it delivered him into our hands.” 

Hulot could only watch as Montauran re-situated the dagger from Corentin’s throat to the side of his face, laying it almost tenderly against one pale cheek. Reluctant tears filled the spy’s green eyes as the blade pressed into undefended flesh, but Montauran continued to laugh as the bright spurt of blood sprang forth and spilled down the delicate chin, staining Corentin’s nightshirt with red.

“Don’t,” Hulot said, helplessly, taking another step forward. He halted as the knife descended again — and, suddenly, the laughter broke off mid-stream as if the ghost had been throttled. 

Corentin swayed on his feet, his narrow face contorting with strange and conflicting expressions, and then, abruptly, he pitched himself urgently into Hulot’s arms.

“Hit me!” Corentin hissed. 

_“What?”_

“I said, _hit me_,” Corentin repeated, holding the knife away from his body in fingers that quivered like leaves in a thunderstorm. 

Hulot shook himself from his stupor, and slapped the knife away from the little spy’s shaking hand.

“Like that?”

“Yes,” Corentin said, grasping the front of Hulot’s shirt with his free hand and thrusting his bloodied face toward the commandant’s, continuing: “Again, and _here_, upon my life—!”

Hulot didn’t hesitate. His open palm connected with Corentin’s cheek; after all, it had been itching for _weeks_ to strike the spy.

Corentin gasped as the slap cracked across the side of his face that wasn’t bleeding. He put a hand to his cheek. Beneath his pale fingers, the red imprint of Hulot’s palm could clearly be seen.

“Like _that_, you mean?”

Corentin’s nostrils flared; Hulot recognised the purposeful look in his green eyes. 

“_Harder_,” he said, and Hulot needed no second telling.

This time Corentin’s head rocked back on his slender shoulders; he lolled in Hulot’s grasp like a rag doll. Under the tangle of golden hair, the fight seemed to drain from his fine-boned face.

“Too much?” Hulot enquired, staring worriedly into Corentin’s glazed eyes. He did not know if the possessive ghost of Montauran, which had proven so unexpectedly susceptible to its vessel’s pain, would return if Corentin were to swoon, or what he, Hulot, would do if it did.

Corentin shook his head hazily as if to clear it, barely strong enough to keep his eyelids from drooping closed. “No, no, you must keep going,” he muttered, but it was obvious that he was nearing the end of his strength, and equally obvious that Hulot was going to have to find some other way to hurt him that wouldn’t knock him senseless.

Somewhere he could strike the little spy that would hurt, but which wouldn’t do him any permanent damage, or cause him to lose consciousness? Hulot knew just the place.

There was no time to spare for dignity, and, to his credit, Corentin did not object on this or on any other basis; he was silent as Hulot flung himself into the nearest armchair and unceremoniously turned Corentin over his knee and raised the billowing tail of Corentin’s nightshirt.

Hulot had spent much of their acquaintance pointedly not remarking upon Corentin’s close-fitting yellow breeches, or indeed any aspect of Corentin’s physique displayed thereby. His thoughts had been occupied with more pressing matters, such as the fate of the republican army in Brittany. In the current circumstances, however, he could not fail to observe the curved, round buttocks and lean, tightly-muscled thighs now presented to him. The spy’s white flesh had seen no battleground more taxing than that of a bedroom, being as smooth as a girl’s, and the sight of the bare, quivering rump bent compliantly over his lap filled him with an unexpected surge of protectiveness.

Hulot set such softer feelings aside, and went to work. 

That experienced warrior knew well how to regulate his blows, and to attune the weight of his slaps to the hitches in the little spy’s breathing. Corentin kept up a steady flow of curses throughout, which permitted further calibration of his proximity to fainting, and also displayed a rather pleasing soldierly fortitude. 

After five minutes or so, when Corentin’s moon-pale buttocks were covered with satisfying red marks and his panted invectives had been replaced by sobs, Hulot ceased his efforts. He stared down at the spy warily, ready to strike again at the first sign that the ghost of Montauran had re-asserted its control. 

“Did it work? Are you master of yourself again?”

“For now, at any rate,” Corentin muttered, raising his bloody and tear-stained face from Hulot’s knee to glare up at him. 

The young man was once again looking more like himself; that is to say, balanced on his customary edge of self-aggrandisement and icy composure. Hulot would never have dreamed he would be glad to see it. 

“Welcome back, citizen spy.”

“It may not be for long,” Corentin said, grimly. “It’s a good thing you didn’t go for the papers. The Gars wants to get his hands on his marriage licence; he believes if he gets me to sign it in my blood, I’ll be his companion, and Marie’s as well, in the Purgatory that the Bretons call _l’Anaon_.”

Perhaps it was Hulot’s imagination, but he could almost make out, in the darkness, a presence hovering above the little spy: a fair-haired man with a red ribbon about his breast, his well-made body riddled with bullets in the thighs and arms, and a look of unspeakable malevolence in his blue eyes.

Despite himself, Hulot made the sign of the cross, and clasped Corentin closer to him, as if human flesh could stand in the breach between a ghost and his living prey.

“God’s thunder! How do we exorcise this _ci-devant_ ghost once and for all?”

“Damned if I know,” muttered Corentin. “This is the expertise of priests. We should go roust the abbé of Saint-Léonard from his bed; he will have some ideas if he’s at all worth his salt. Is the Gars’ body still in the guard house?”

“I had it conveyed to the church, to be decently buried.” Hulot was struck with an idea. “Perhaps this haunting will cease once it is laid to rest in holy ground.”

“It’s a sound theory,” Corentin commented. “Let us test it without delay.” 

He shook off Hulot’s encircling arm, hauling himself to his feet, and then his eyes rolled back in his head and his knees buckled as he fainted dead away.

Hulot caught the spy before Corentin could collapse entirely, lifting him bodily into his arms. He couldn’t help cursing himself for a fool: of course the sudden rush of blood from the head would have placed even the most hardened soldier in danger of swooning, and Corentin had additionally received a spanking that would have made that most hardened soldier cry.

“Corentin! Damn it all, _Corentin_!” 

The golden lashes lifted, and Corentin blinked rapidly, his green eyes focusing on Hulot’s with some difficulty. “Don’t worry, _mon général_, I’m still in charge of this unit,” he murmured. 

All at once he realised he was being carried like a child, and his slender body stiffened in momentary affront. Then he shrugged, pragmatically choosing to relax, and his hands came up to fasten around Hulot’s shoulders. 

Of course, Corentin wasn’t one to let the opportunity pass without firing yet another salvo.

“Incidentally, I’m gratified to see you do care after all! The Gars didn’t even let me get my boots on, and these stone floors are freezing.”

Hulot could not hold back a derisive snort, but in truth the little spy’s hands did feel cold. It would be in the interests of a successful joint ghost-laying enterprise for Hulot to carry Corentin back to his room, rather than have him catch his death running about the house in bare feet and this flimsy nightshirt. Besides, Corentin weighed no more than Hector had when his younger brother had still been small enough to be carried in this way, and Hulot was rather gratified by how willingly the spy seemed to have settled into his arms after all.

Hulot began to mount the stairs with this not-unpleasant burden. He knew he could not risk shouting for servants, but Lebrun and Georges and the others would deal with the poor guard’s body and Marie’s haunted knife, and assist with the complicated process of banishing the Gars’ ghost for good, even if Corentin’s rump stopped hurting long enough for Montauran to regain possession of his body.

“Commandant,” drawled Corentin, interrupting the flow of Hulot’s thoughts, “the pain is fading. You’d better hit me again, or the Gars will resume his wooing in short order.” 

“Is that so?” Hulot enquired, trying not to smile. He reached for Corentin’s casual tone. “In that case, you can count on me to do what I can to prevent it.”

Perhaps a pinch or three would be sufficient? This wouldn’t be particularly soldierly, but one couldn’t very well deliver a slap or a spanking with a spy sitting primly in one’s arms. 

Hulot shifted his grip so the fabric of the nightshirt fell away from one creamy thigh, and set about to do his duty.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to K for the beta and for saving the princess carry XD
> 
> Title, and creepy customs, referenced in this spooky book of Chouan ghost stories: [Dealings with the Dead — Narratives from La Légende de la Morte en Basse Bretagne, G. Redway, 1898.](https://books.google.com.sg/books/about/Dealings_with_the_Dead.html?id=vBZLAAAAYAAJ&redir_esc=y)


End file.
